Pranam To The Paw

File under: Notable Quote

This was passed along by a friend today. Advice for the seeker and the guru:

How Enlightened Are You? A Test

If you can live without caffeine or nicotine
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains
If you can resist complaining
If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you any time
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment
If you can ignore friends' limited educations and never correct them
If you can treat the rich and poor alike
If you can face the world without lies or deceit
If you can conquer tension without medical help
If you can relax without liquor
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs
If you can have no prejudice against creed, color, religion, gender, sexual preference, or politics —

— then you have almost reached the same level of spiritual development as your dog.

Love Guru Nominated For Razzie Award

File under: The Siddhi of PR

We're calling this proof that the Love Guru failed because it was a bad movie, not because the boycott called by self-styled Hindu spiritual leader Rajan "Z-List" Zed was anything close to a success, other than giving Zed a chance to whore himself out to the press for a few months last summer.

Our Guru Will Turn You Into A Real Sex Dragon

File under: The Siddhi of PR

Now that we've sold our soul for 2 cases of Guru energy drink per month, (it's just that good, people!), we're pleased to present this Guru video promo for your viewing enjoyment:

We're still lapping up the sweet, sweet irony of seeing the term "guru" juxaposed with "real sex dragon." The folks at GED are at the vanguard of a movement that will sweep up spiritual culture into full, pop-cultural bloom. You are looking at the future, sadhaks. The walls between what is profane and what is spiritual are slated to dissolve, soon.

Updated Folk Theory Of Guru-Based Spirituality

File under: Folk Theories

The universe just handed us a shiny new weapon against superstition and ignorance in guru-based spiritual culture: the idea of the folk theory. We first encountered the concept in George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's Philosophy in the Flesh, the subject matter—that all philosophies of mind in the West are dead dog wrong, and why—is a bit outside the scope of this blog. But the book is an absolute treasure of clarity about the mind and how it works, and consequently, how societies and cultures are structured as well.

A folk theory is any set of "common sense" beliefs about something we experience together in our lives. The idea that our personalities can survive death is a folk theory. To a great majority of folks, the idea that we'll survive death—going to heaven, hell, or who knows where—is simple common sense. But there is no proof of life after death beyond personal anecdote, and neuroscience is now showing us that these experiences of the supernatural can be reproduced in a lab with magnetic fields, deep brain stimulation, and simple tricks of perception.

Thus, we present our list of the ideas that make up a folk theory we've identified in guru-based spirituality. This is the tool box of any flimflamming, big-time guru. See if you can come up with some [more] of your own!

Folk Theory of Guru-Based Spirituality

• Enlightenment can be transmitted supernaturally
• Enlightenment is the culmination of something
• Enlightenment entails knowing everything
• Enlightenment causes all thought to cease
• Enlightenment is love
• Only a guru can bestow enlightenment
• The guru is within yourself
• Being God means having some or all of "God's" powers
• Because you are God, you can affect things by thought alone
• Because you are connected to everything, you can affect things by thought alone
• Everything is connected
• You are a spark of the divine
• You are guided by a higher self
• You create your own reality
• Everything in the world is an illusion
• Divinity can be subverted by the flesh
• Good and evil are forces locked in an eternal struggle
• Good always prevails
• Things will be better in the future
• Things were better in the past
• People and things can be holy
• Ancient wisdom is better
• A just, omnipotent God exists
• Everything happens according to a Plan
• You'll get back every good and bad thing you do
• Sex is a loss to the spirit
• Sex is a boon to the spirit
• Technology is harmful
• Only the heart knows what is true
• The mind is an enemy of the spirit
• The spirit is an energy
• Personality survives death

We've got a list on our desktop and are [still] itching to add to it. Please suggest away in the comments.

We Only Did It For The Free Drinks

File under: The Siddhi of PR

Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed the addition of some genuine ad banners on the blog. We are pleased to be now sponsored by Guru energy drinks, a product we told you about a few months ago. Actually, it was their web marketing we told you about, a series of "auditions" we wanted to hate but ended up loving. The folks at Guru were kind enough to send us a case of their product, and it was love all over again.

The main feature of Guru energy drinks (besides the fact they are delicious) is simple. They are all natural. The harshness has been eliminated but the spirit still springs. Being no stranger to energy drinks, (and having experienced the unpleasant light-headedness that some of them induce,) we took to this Guru right away. So, we told the folks there that we'd display a few of their banners if they'd put us on the comp list for product. And that, pretty much, is the story of Guruphiliac selling out.

What's also quite delicious is the provocative nature of these ads. Guru. Clean energy for dirty minds. It's the final nail in the coffin for the rigid notions of sexual purity which have pervaded much of guru-based spirituality as it has come to the West. As a culture, we never needed these notions, and they have done us little good on the whole, socially and spiritually.

So drink up, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar! Send us an email and we'll hook you up!